How to cook steamed rice

In Korea cuisine a lot of dishes are prepared and cooked having in mind that they will be served with steamed rice. This is one of the reason why flavors of Korean food are usually strong (spicy, sour, salty, sweet) because they will be balanced by the neutral flavor of steamed rice.

It’s very important then to know how to prepare a proper steamed rice (bap in Korean) and today I will give you a simple recipe to cook it.

bap (from wikicommons)

If you own a rice cooker, you won’t need this recipe, but if you don’t own one, no worries, cooking a perfect steamed rice can be done also with a normal pot.

For rice we can use Korean rice, sushi rice or risotto rice.

Ingredients for 4 people

– 3 cups of rice (300 grams)

– 3 cups of water (3 cups and 1/4 if you cook rice together with other cereals, seeds or beans)

Directions

First step is to clean the rice. Pour the rice in a bowl and pour enough water to submerge it. Move the rice around using your hands; this will eliminate the excess of starch from rice. Tilt the bowl and drop the water in the sink. Repeat until the water comes out clean (usually 3 or 4 times is enough)

Drop the cleaned rice in a non-sticky pot and pour cold water until submerge the rice for about (1/2 inch (1 cm)

Put the lid on the pot and set the stove to high until the water will start boiling

Once the water start boiling, set to stove to minimum heat and leat it cook for 10 min, keeping the lid on

After 10 min, turn off the stove and keep the rice in the pan for 5 min more.

After 5 min, open the lid and stir the rice gently with a wooden spoon.

The bap is ready!Pour a portion for each guest in a small bowl and keep the rest of the rice in the pot.

Often in Korea rice is cooked together with other cereals, seeds or bean. This provides an additional source of vitamins and proteins.